Hicks-Stearns Family Museum
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox museum
| name = Hicks-Stearns Family Museum
| logo =
| image = Hicks-Stearns Family Museum.jpg
| image_upright =
| caption =
| alt = Front view of the Hicks-Stearns Family Museum
| map_type = USA Connecticut
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| established = 1978 (house built in 1788)
| location = 42 Tolland Green
Tolland, Connecticut 06084
USA
| coordinates = {{coord|41.871419|-72.368123|type:landmark_region:US-CT|display=inline,title}}
| type = Historic house museum
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| collections = Family heirlooms
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| website = {{URL|https://www.facebook.com/hicksstearns/}}
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The Hicks-Stearns Family Museum is a Victorian historic house museum located on the town green in Tolland, Connecticut. The house was built in 1788, when it served as a tavern. It was occupied by the Hicks family from 1845 until 1970.{{Cite book|last1=Walker|first1=Patricia Chambers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mE-Zx4SFOhIC|title=Directory of Historic House Museums in the United States|last2=Graham|first2=Thomas|date=2000|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-0344-1|language=en}} Along with the Old Tolland County Jail and Museum, the Tolland County Courthouse, and the Daniel Benton Homestead, the Hicks-Stearns Family Museum is one of Tolland's four major landmarks.{{Cite web|title=Tolland Plans Its 300th Anniversary Celebration|url=https://www.nydailynews.com/hc-xpm-2014-08-18-hc-250-tolland-turns-300-20140818-story.html|last=McWilliams|first=Kathleen|date=2014-08-18|website=New York Daily News|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-05-27}}
House
The Hicks-Stearns family house is a transition home, featuring a colonial-era kitchen and a Victorian-era parlor and furnishings. Collections include family heirlooms, cloth tea balls, Victrola, and faux bamboo furniture.{{Cite book|last=American Association for State and Local History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LY0Q5Rv4O3YC|title=Directory of Historical Organizations in the United States and Canada|date=2002|publisher=Rowman Altamira|isbn=978-0-7591-0002-2|location=|pages=|language=en}}
The house's original owner was Benoni Shepard, a Congregationalist deacon and Tolland's first postmaster.{{Cite book|last=Waldo|first=Loren Pinckney|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9DQEAAAAYAAJ|title=The Early History of Tolland: An Address Delivered Before the Tolland County Historical Society, at Tolland Conn., on the 22d Day of August and the 27th Day of September, 1861|date=1861|publisher=Press of Case, Lockwood|isbn=|location=|pages=103–104|language=en}}
The museum hosts tours, concerts, and holiday programs from May through December.{{Cite web|title=Hicks-Stearns Family Museum, Tolland|url=https://cityseeker.com/hartford-ct/1133785-hicks-stearns-family-museum|website=cityseeker|language=en|access-date=2020-05-27}}
Hicks family
The house's most prominent resident was Ratcliffe Hicks (1843-1906), eldest son of Charles Hicks, a successful merchant from Providence, Rhode Island, and Maria Stearns. Ratcliffe was a Brown University graduate (1864), successful lawyer and industrialist (president of the Canfield Rubber Works in Bridgeport), and Connecticut state legislator.{{Cite book|last1=Benedict|first1=George Grenville|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NlwoAAAAYAAJ|title=Men of Progress: Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in and of the State of Connecticut|last2=Burton|first2=Richard|date=1898|publisher=New England magazine|isbn=|location=|pages=199–200|language=en}} Ratcliffe renovated and expanded the family house with many Victorian elements, adding a front porch and a distinctive three-story tower.{{Cite web|title=Lojeri Productions: Hicks-Stearns Clip|url=http://www.lojeriproductions.org/clips/hicksstearns.html|website=www.lojeriproductions.org|access-date=2020-05-27}}
When Ratcliffe Hicks died in 1906, his will established a trust (worth a quarter of his estate) to start a school of agriculture and forestry in Connecticut. The school opened in 1941 as part of the University of Connecticut. UConn's Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture and the Ratcliffe Hicks Building & Arena are named after him.{{Cite web|title=Ratcliffe Hicks School of Agriculture: Then & Now|url=https://rhsa.uconn.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1661/2016/02/rhsahistory.pdf|last=|first=|date=2016|website=|publisher=University of Connecticut|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}
Dedicated in 1951, UConn's Elizabeth Hicks Residence Hall is a women's dormitory named after Ratcliffe's daughter, painter and philanthropist Elizabeth Hicks (1884-1974).{{Cite web|title=East Campus residence hall namesakes' ties bridge the years|url=http://www.advance.uconn.edu/1998/980413/041398hs.htm|last=Roy|first=Mark J.|date=1998-04-13|website=UConn Advance|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160501164910/http://www.advance.uconn.edu/1998/980413/041398hs.htm|archive-date=2016-05-01|access-date=2020-05-27|url-status=dead}} Elizabeth willed the Tolland family home to a nonprofit trust to convert into a museum.
References
External links
- [https://www.facebook.com/hicksstearns Hicks-Stearns Family Museum] - official Facebook page
Category:Buildings and structures in Tolland County, Connecticut
Category:Museums in Tolland County, Connecticut